With the offense weakened, that puts pressure on the pitching staff to win games, and I don’t see enough there for that to happen. Phil Hughes looks like he’s not ready, Ian Kennedy never had that much upside to begin with and you can’t feel 100 percent safe about Andy Pettitte’s elbow or Mike Mussina’s performance holding up. Moving Joba Chamberlain to the rotation would solve a lot, but the Yankees are being way too conservative on that front, and that’s going to cost them games between now and the time it finally happens.

As is, a lot has to fall into place for the Yankees to make the playoffs. If it takes well more than 90 wins to get the wild card this year, I don’t know if they can do it. As is, they’ll need to make at least one significant trade and catch a big break elsewhere — the rest of the bullpen stepping up big if/when Joba becomes a starter, Hughes, Kennedy or Darrell Rasner panning out this season, or some other helpful event — for the team to succeed.

This team will still score 900+ runs. There is way too much talent. The guys will get close to or match the back of their baseball cards.
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That’s one rosy scenario, I must say. They currently project to score 652 runs, so that requires that they score 250 “extra” runs over the remaining 117 games, or 2.1 more runs per game. They are averaging 4.0 runs per game, so that means the target is a little over 6.0 runs per game.

Last year’s team averaged just under 6 runs per game overall (5.97). So this team is going to outperform last year’s team over the remaining games, when last year’s scoring required the extraordinary contributions of A-Rod and Jorge?

I’m not saying there’s no possible way it will happen, but it seems like a very long shot. If every regular on the roster manages to improve to “get close to or match the back of their baseball cards” then maybe. But that doesn’t look too likely, IMHO.

–so that requires that they score 250 “extra” runs over the remaining 117 games, or 2.1 more runs per game. They are averaging 4.0 runs per game, so that means the target is a little over 6.0 runs per game.–